Question

"I only know to ask questions"
-- Nagesh to Sivaji in "Thiruvilayadal"

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

A Question of time

Historically "solar time" was followed because of which even nearby cities had different local times.Then the world adopted time zones where times vary at a granularity of 7.5 degrees in logitude or .5 hours.

Will it be a better design decision to have only one time ("zone") for the whole world?

Ofcourse this will have several side effects, for example the universal correspondence between the state of the sun and the time will be lost. For example at one place sun may rise at 0600 hrs and other place at 1400 hrs. Similarly the change of the day (date). If we assume the change of the day to happen at 2400 hrs then this may happen for one place in the morning and another place in the night.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Subjective?

The following are the rules of an online poll in which you are a participant.Poll question : Pick the least popular player among { Sachin, Damien Martyn, Pommie Mbwangwa} -- (Note that these are three people whose popularity levels are "well known" and quite non-arguable - I dont expect an australian or zim to comment this blog!!)

The poll in conducted over a sample of people which represent an average world (or indian) population.

1. There is a group of people (among the n people) who are "winners"2. These are the set of people whose answers are the least popular. ( For example if 10,20 and 30 ( n = 60)are respectively the votes recieved for A,B and C then the people who voted for A are the winners.

Suppose you want to maximize your chances of winning, whom will you vote for?

(I will try to explain the importance of this seemingly convoluted-silly question in the next blog)